Biomaterial-Guided Stem Cell Osteogenesis: From Material Design to Bone Regeneration

Bone defects from trauma, tumor resection, infection, and degeneration remain a major cause of pain and disability, while autografts and permanent implants are limited by donor-site morbidity, immune risk, stress shielding, and revision surgery. Successful bone regeneration depends on two tightly linked determinants: a biomaterial that provides temporary mechanical and biological support and gradually gives way to new bone, and the stem cells whose osteogenic differentiation ultimately rebuilds the tissue. On the material side, biodegradable metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, and hydrogels are shifting from passive substitutes toward instructive, microenvironment-responsive systems. On the biological side, mesenchymal and skeletal stem cells can be steered along the osteogenic lineage through TGF-β/BMP signaling and mechanotransduction. Uniting rational material design with the biology of stem cell osteogenesis is therefore essential for durable, clinically translatable bone regeneration.This Research Topic gives equal weight to the two pillars of its title—material design and stem cell osteogenesis—and to how they couple. On the material side, we seek studies integrating composition and architecture with controlled degradation, mechanical competence, surface/interface engineering, and controlled bioactive delivery, with mechanistic evidence linking material or interface design to antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activity, osteoimmunomodulation, angiogenesis–osteogenesis coupling, and suppression of excessive osteoclast activity. On the biological side, we equally welcome work dissecting how material and microenvironmental cues govern the recruitment, adhesion, proliferation, and osteogenic versus adipogenic commitment of mesenchymal and skeletal stem cells through TGF-β/BMP/SMAD signaling, mechanotransduction, and transcriptional or epigenetic regulators. The collection also advances reproducible fabrication, physiologically relevant evaluation, degradation-product biosafety, and translation-oriented design, seeking shared principles that make stem cell-instructive biomaterials predictable and clinically relevant.This Research Topic welcomes contributions on, but not limited to, the following themes, organized across two equally weighted pillars.Material design: • Biodegradable metallic, polymeric, ceramic, and composite biomaterials, and injectable, adhesive, self-healing, or stimuli-responsive hydrogels; • Implant coatings, surface/interface modification, and corrosion or degradation control that couple controlled ion/biologic release to bone formation; • 3D-printed or bioprinted porous scaffolds, patient-specific implants, and electrospun, decellularized, cell-laden, or drug-delivering constructs, with osteoimmunomodulation, antibacterial/antibiofilm activity, angiogenesis–osteogenesis coupling, and osteoclast regulation.Stem cell osteogenesis: • Material- and microenvironment-guided recruitment, adhesion, proliferation, and osteogenic versus adipogenic lineage commitment of mesenchymal and skeletal stem cells; • How biomaterials and their surface and mechanical cues modulate TGF-β/BMP/SMAD signaling, mechanotransduction, and transcriptional, epigenetic, or microRNA regulators of stem cell osteogenic differentiation; • Biomaterial-based modulation of inflammatory or pathological bone microenvironments, material-supported or material-delivered hESC/iPSC-derived mesenchymal progenitors and exosomes, and in vitro and preclinical evaluation of these constructs.Purely descriptive material synthesis without biological validation, and purely clinical, bibliometric, or unvalidated computational studies, fall outside this collection's scope. Topic editors: Junyu Qian Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86045/biomaterial-guided-stem-cell-osteogenesis-from-material-design-to-bone-regeneration